U.S. Pat. No. 3,797,353 of present co-inventor R. B. Calhan of the present application discloses a prior meat slicing machine in which a trough, for supporting a large piece of meat to be sliced, is supported for movement along a rectangular orbit adjacent the saw blade. An electric motor driven mechanical linkage (including cam, crank and rack elements) cycles the trough through its rectangular orbit and coordinately advances the piece of meat toward the plane of the saw blade by fixed length steps for the purpose of removing fixed thickness slices. The slices fall onto and are removed from the blade area by a conveyor. Elongate leaf springs fixed above the trough continuously press down on the piece of meat adjacent the blade to help hold same in position during slicing.
While the above-mentioned patented machine provided generally satisfactory performance for its intended purpose, nevertheless a continuing effort has been made to further develop and improve machines of this general kind.
Accordingly, the objects and purposes of this invention include provision of the following.
A meat slicing system for automatically varying the thickness of successive slices to maintain substantially the same preselected weight for a number of successively produced slices.
A system as aforesaid in which substantially constant weight slices are achieved by comparing the weight of a freshly produced slice with a preselected weight reference and compensatingly adjusting a backstop plate governing the advancement of a piece of meat beyond the plane of the blade to so change the slice thickness in such direction as to tend to reduce the difference between slice weight and the preselected weight reference.
A system as aforesaid capable of rejecting a portion of the piece of meat, for example a preset thickness thereof remaining after the major portion of the piece of meat has been sliced.
A system as aforesaid in which the major moving components of the machine are powered by a common energy source, such as compressed air.
A system as aforesaid in which the piece of meat is pushed toward the plane of the saw blade by rotation of a compressed air driven motor and in which the trough is moved through its rectangular orbit by extension and retraction of a pair of mutually orthogonal air cylinders.
A system as aforesaid in which the piece of meat is clamped and unclamped with respect to the trough by compressed air cylinders extensible and retractable in coordination with movement of said trough through portions of its rectangular orbit.
Other objects and purposes of this invention will be apparent to persons acquainted with apparatus of this general type upon reading the following specification and inspecting the accompanying drawings.
The objects and purposes of this invention are met by providing a machine and method wherein a pusher advances a piece to be sliced across the plane of a slicing member against a backstop. The slicing member removes a slice from the piece. The difference between the slice weight and a preselected reference weight is used to adjust the separation of the backstop from the plane of the slicing member and hence the thickness of the next slice to be cut from the piece. Clamps hold the piece during slicing but release to allow the pusher to again advance the piece for production of the next slice. The pusher is actuable for ejecting a residual butt portion of the piece to enable loading of a new piece.